4 of 5 Indian children do not survive cancer. What led to this sorry state?

India has the highest prevalence of childhood cancer which can be traced to its higher population of young people, 30 per cent of its population is below 14 years, according to 2011 Census

How long does a cancer diagnosis take?

Six months, according to Bipin Jana, 45, whose eight-year-old son Parmeshwar has stage-4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. That is how long it took the family, travelling 2,000 km across West Bengal, New Delhi and finally, Mumbai, to get an effective diagnosis and start treatment.

Parmeshwar is currently undergoing chemotherapy at the Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH), Mumbai, India’s foremost cancer treatment centre. Almost half (43.6 per cent) of the children with cancer admitted here had to travel over 1,300 km to reach the hospital, records showed. Up to 10 per cent travelled over 2,200